Tag: pony party

Hi all – I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. I’m oot and aboot, so I probably won’t be here to comment. Have at it!

Chanticleer

Dulaman

Christmas Songs II

Eartha Kitt:  Santa Baby

Christmas Songs I

Bobby Helms:  Jingle Bell Rock

I thought I would add two others to my Canadian music you might not have heard of who I happen to like.

The first is a band called Blue Rodeo, they have a bit of a country edge and get occasionally play in the US on CMT. They aren’t quite as big as the Tragically Hip but they aren’t starving artists, they make a good living selling a lot of CDs mainly in Canada.

The next is a wonderful jazz/pop singer named Molly Johnson. For some reason I thought NKP might like her based on what I have heard from her lovely audioblog offerings.

You will realize that the third one is actually a commercial promoting tourism in Ontario, the province I am from. It is kinda sweet and it made me homesick.

The Tragically Hip are a bit of an institution in Canuckistan. They are also an interesting example of a band who while they tour in the US  and Europe seemed to have made a conscious decision to remain firmly based in their Canadian roots. The prevailing wisdom for many Canadian artists used to be that in order to make it big on had to bust in on the gigantic American market. The hip are an example of a band that has sold well enough in Canada that making it big in the US has never been a requirement. They have even performed for Queen Elizabeth II, and while Canadians are no longer royalists, they have great affection for it and the fact that they did perform for her is a mark of essential Canadianess. Many of their song lyric reference specific Canadian events, history, and geography. In Canada they play in huge arena in the US they tend to play small clubs. Most Canadians of a certain age ( mine) know most of the lyrics to their songs.

Wheat Kings is about a man named David Milgaard who was wrongly convicted of rape and murder. The whole affair shone a very unpleasant light on the Canadian justice system. It was a light that sorely needed shining and many people bring it up when discussing whether the death penalty has a place in Canada.

I have no idea who the guys are in this video montage but I spent many a summer camping in Algonquin Park and the song Three Pistols references

a brilliant Canadian painter named Tom Thompson. He was a part of the Group of Seven influential painters in the 1900’s to the 1920’s who are now considered icons.

Another favorite is Fifty Mission Cap, a song about Bill Barilko who played for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

He scored the winning goal who scored the winning goal in the 1951 Stanley Cup and then disappeared on a fishing trip that year. His body was found the next year the Leafs won the cup in 1962.

Although this video is several years old it gives you an idea of how big they are in Canada, and Gordon Downie, the lead singer is a bit of an eccentric.

I love eggs. Fried, scrambled, boiled, mushed up with mayo and onion for an egg sand which, omelets, frittatas, quiche, huevos rancheros. I never met an egg I did not like. They are good for any meal. I admit I have never had green eggs and ham nor have I tried to fry one on the pavement on a hot day.

I am pretty neutral on Gordon Ramsey. But men who cook are awesome… I was always intrigued by a fella who was willing to cook a meal for me. But if you cook me eggs…. well… I will leave it to the imagination.

Remember…. don’t rec pony party… we’re here to play….

This is a call to all those who lurk around the Pony Parties… welcome! and please feel free to say hello. go ahead and leave a comment. be silly or serious. be profound or profane. just don’t recommend this pony party…

Tonight, I wanted to post this comment from ek hornbeck… it’s a wonderfully written short short short story. I didn’t want it to get lost, so enjoy it…

My ego and I sit in the bars… (2+ / 0-)

have a drink or two… play the juke box. And soon the faces of all the other people they turn toward mine and they smile. And they’re saying, “We don’t know your name, mister, but you’re a very nice fella.” My ego and I warm ourselves in all these golden moments. We’ve entered as strangers – soon we have friends. And they come over… and they sit with us… and they drink with us… and they talk to us. They tell about the big terrible things they’ve done and the big wonderful things they’ll do. Their hopes, and their regrets, and their loves, and their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar. And then I introduce them to my ego… and he’s bigger and grander than anything they offer me. And when they leave, they leave impressed. The same people seldom come back; but that’s envy, my dear. There’s a little bit of envy in the best of us.

Well, maybe one more…this gem from a new poster (and former lurker???), Faber…

In my time zone… (4.00 / 9)

…the solstice comes at 10:08 PM tomorrow, in the midst of all the fizzle-and-bang of cultural convention.  We have lived for uncounted millions of years beneath the recurring circles of this particular sky; whether we choose to surface the fact to ourselves or not, we have evolved internal representations of them, deeper than words go.  The longest darkness, in which things quicken that will manifest as the days lengthen again…  We are equipped to know, without the news reaching us over the problematical, uncertain road from an imagined Jerusalem, that this is our time for birthing gods.  

Might I crave your indulgence and bring, to this party, one particularly starchy old red tomcat?  He really doesn’t get out enough, and I’ve a notion it would do him good.  

by: Faber @ Thu Dec 20, 2007 at 19:35:27 PST

I gotta migraine… almost missed doing this 🙁

note: let’s try this one again…

It’s the time of year… we look upward for a sign

Maybe it’ll be this year… we’ll find what we’ve always been looking for.

We lay there & looked up at the night sky and she told me about stars called blue squares and red swirls and I told her I’d never heard of them. Of course not, she said, the really important stuff they never tell you. You have to imagine it on your own.”

^{Brian Andreas, Blue Squares}